And Onward to Big Sky Country
by frankbannister
Summary: Set directly after the credits, the whole gang becomes a family. I wrote this story in one morning, as a gift, a few days before my very own Bozo's birthday.


_**And Onward to Big Sky Country**_

_June 24, 2018_

_Happy Birthday, Julian._

* * *

He wasn't at all what she thought he'd be like. Driving down the winding roads of the mountain, he concentrated all of his energy on the turns ahead. She wondered why he was gripping the steering wheel with bright red fingers, almost as though it would fling out of his hands at any moment…. Even his knuckles were turning white at this point. Could it be that he has already regretted his decision? The plan and action that he initiated? Newton Crosby is probably a lot of things, she thought, but unreliable didn't seem to be one of them.

"No." she said aloud. There was silence, but she knows that he heard.

She then turned to the back of the van. There, sat in between a load of boxes clattering about with heavy possessions and a handful of crates that carried their clothing, was the silver darling that uprooted them all. Johnny Five, the once weapon of mass destruction for war, was happily pet-sitting eight kittens, five cats, two cockatiels, six chickens, a pair of skunks, and one three-legged dog. He seemed to be humming as he opened up a box of snacks for the skunks.

It took Newton a minute, but he finally answered. "No? Are you talking to me, or the robot?"

She stared at him, squinting her eyes in an angry manner that would scare away even the most hardened of criminals.

"His _name _is Johnny Five. How is it that you can remember how to type out long useless numbers on a computer so that we can find the safest way to your dad's place, but you can't remember that he has _a name_?"

Her voice was getting shrill at the end and he could tell she was about to lose her temper. Again.

"Okay, look, I'm sorry, I'll try harder! It's just that…. Well, you try getting used to addressing someone that _you _built in an empty hangar…." his voice was waning a bit as he said this to her. He was sweating as the turns were getting more intense and the four lanes turned to two, but hearing another lecture from Stephanie on living beings made him more nervous.

"So, anyway, who exactly were you addressing?" he said gently.

"I was talking to myself, if you absolutely must know. I don't think it's right that you think you're running this show just because we're going to your place. Shouldn't we all be taking turns with the driving?" she said with a slight annoyance.

A sudden wave-like chill came over Newton's entire body and his face suddenly felt hot. He wasn't sure what to say to her. If he said the truth, that she was an even worse driver than him, he'd hurt her feelings but he also didn't want to outright lie. He felt trapped. He was already up to his head in water with the anxiety of driving such a long way when he's hardly been behind a wheel in the past year.

"Oh, uh…. I thought you'd like to spend time with Number Five and, uh, maybe the animals might need your help along the way." He glanced over at her and gave her a sort of half smile.

"Yeah, I guess that's a good idea. I think the chickens might be feeling a little restless cooped up that crate." She was turned around the other way looking at Johnny and the animals.

Newton almost let out a sigh of relief when she turned to him once again.

"So what about letting Johnny drive for a while? I can tend to the animals and you can take a breather." she said happily.

"Wait, are you sure that's wise? What if someone sees him in the driver's seat? He's not supposed to exist anymore and if we're reported for suspicious behaviour it'll be impossible to explain. Not to mention it took me a really long time to find a new seat for the van after he decided it was no longer necessary!"

Johnny Five was listening intently in the back. He liked to drive. He learned how exactly five days ago. That had to be plenty of time by now to be reckoned a seasoned driver by everyone.

"You sit, I drive!" he yelled cheerfully from the back.

Newton was at a loss. "Well, I guess we _are _almost near Idaho. As soon as we reach the town of Enterprise, we can do a switch there. Maybe we could take a little detour to Joseph, it's even smaller and it's getting dark so we should be fine…."

Then, they did the switch as promised. Stephanie was pleased, she not only took Newton out of his own head for a little while, but she was able to let the animals roam free for half an hour. Johnny was excited about his new job, and Newton was relieved to no longer feel as though he was going to drive them to their deaths.

After what seemed like an eternity of driving, they all arrived safely in Montana. Newton's father had lived just outside of Helmville, a town, if you could even call it that, that was so empty you'd be lucky to find another human being a mile away. It was the perfect place to raise their new family in privacy. Why, Johnny Five would have all the freedom he could ever dream up!

"It's such a shame I couldn't bring _all_ the animals with me." Stephanie said sadly. She had quite the gathering at her house, much to the dismay of Mrs Cepeda, her landlord and neighbor. Stephanie wasn't supposed to have that many animals all at once in her home, but Mrs Cepeda knew it was all in good nature, so she looked past it every time.

"In Montana, I'll be sure to rescue and rehabilitate ten times as many animals." she had told her as they packed up as few of her belongings for the move. Mrs. Cepeda was quite fond of Stephanie, always willing to lend a hand or pick up the phone if she saw one of her loser ex-boyfriends roaming around up to no good. She'll miss her attitude and spunk, she won't be missing the late night dog barking and owl hooting, however.

Her train of thought was interrupted by a sudden cheerful yell.

"Multiple input! Various types! Oooohhhh! Colors!" Johnny Five was already flinging himself out of the van to view the various types of trees growing outside the fence that divided the house from the small side road leading them there. Newton followed him while Stephanie took a moment to soak in her first sight of the place.

"Pine! Aspen! Fir!" Johnny looked up in awe at the size of these trees. His eye sockets looked as though they were a camera lens focusing in and out to find the best aperture. Then suddenly, he pulled out his laser beam and his eyes went red, much to the horror of Newton. "Number Five, no, stop! This isn't a situation that warrants the use of that!"

It was too late, he was already aiming the laser beam at his designated target and with his red eyes ablaze, Newton knew there was no stopping him. The laser beam shot out at great force and before anyone could even blink, Johnny was finished with his spontaneous attack. "There, all done!" he cried out and quickly put away his deadly weapon.

The laser was as accurate as Ben Jabituya had programmed it to be, that was obvious upon looking. Newton inched forward incredulously. He had engraved writing into one of the trees. It was the date and a set of names. Johnny then turned to look at him and Newton could swear that he was almost smiling.

"You little rascal! Where on earth did you get an idea like that?" he was blown away by the sentiment, even if his heart was still pounding out of his chest.

"Books, Newton, books! Stephanie has many about animals! A boy took names from a tree for his dogs. Maybe one day someone will need your names."

He then strolled off down the path to meet up with Stephanie, who was busy chasing kittens back into their boxes. Newton stayed for a little bit, admiring the cleanly burned lines and pondering the name of the typeset he chose.

"I think I'll keep this a little secret for now." He thought to himself as he walked on over to join them in the kitten catching.

By the time all of the animals were fed, released, and comfortable in their new home, the humans were exhausted. Johnny Five on the other hand, wanted nothing more than to soak up the local input. Stephanie agreed to take him on a walk and they set off into the new land that they would now call their home.

"Johnny, do you know what that is?" she pointed towards a large silver basin and he tilted his head to the side in thought.

"Yes. It is a bathtub. Outdoor bathtub!" he said with delight.

"No, Five", she said with a stifled giggle. "That happens to be a water trough! It means we can keep horses on the land! Maybe even cows and…!" She trailed off her thoughts in excitement but it was too late, he was already gone to explore more interesting things. "Hey, wait for us!"

Johnny wandered around all of the empty buildings with Beasley leading the way. His eyes wandered back and forth, up and down, taking notice of everything that happened to be in sight and asking Stephanie to explain anything he didn't already learn from her encyclopedias. (He had made sure to reread them before she tossed them into the 'donate' box.)

He then lowered himself to the floor and picked up a faded piece of torn paper that contained the words 'Family Comes First'. His body hid the paper from sight.

"Stephanie, are we a family?" He didn't look up as he asked her this.

"A family?" The question somewhat startled her after the trillion of mundane ones they went through. Unsure of her own answer, she simply smiled at him for a few seconds.

"We are…. We're together, that's what we are." She hoped this would satisfy the young mind.

"Okay." He said with a slight nod. He wanted to ask one more question, but didn't. It was a question for another time.

He rose up from his crouched position and without Stephanie noticing, hid the paper between a fencepost as he rolled off in the direction of the house. The sky was exploding with color, yellows and oranges on one side, pinks and blues on the other. It was like nothing Johnny had ever seen and he knew that this was a special moment that few were viewing. His mind then trailed off to that night of the storm. He understood probability to the exact number, but at the same time, a thought nagged at the back of his mind. His existence wasn't supposed to happen but even rarer than that was finding the exact person that would shape his existence into a life worth living. If he didn't run into a soul as kind and open as Stephanie Speck, where would he be right now? Not under this cotton candy colored sky, that he knew for certain.

They arrived at the house and saw that Newton had uncovered the old couch and set up a temporary folding table nearby.

"It's not much, but it's the best we have for now." He looked around and scratched his head slightly. You could tell he was itching to find something, anything to do. He was used to wracking his brain all day, solving impossible coding bugs or creating new experiments. Stephanie was about to ask where Johnny had gone in the three minutes that had passed. For a large, somewhat loud guy, he sure was sneaky.

They both suddenly jumped as they heard a loud dinner bell ringing from the kitchen. Newton ran in to check. It was Johnny, holding a tray filled with diagonally cut sandwiches and slices of apples arranged into flowers. He was wearing an apron.

"Where'd you get that? Wait a minute, and where's the bell?" asked Newton.

"The left drawer. It is filled with them! Today, pink, tomorrow green!" he hummed to himself as he put down the tray on the folding table.

"The bell?" asked Newton confused. He knew they didn't have one of those.

"That, was me!" he looked over proudly at Stephanie, she seemed confused, too. Then she remembered all of the TV he binged on and figured out it was from one of those old reruns he loved so much.

"That's great, Five! I never thought about implementing a recording device that would echo anything previously heard…. Huh." Newton was amused.

"Stephanie's birds taught me. They will repeat anything they like. I like sounds, too! Fixed it into my memory!"

They enjoyed the simple dinner that Johnny had created while listening to a small portable radio that Stephanie had brought along. They were so far out from civilization that they could only pick up an old ragtime music station. Johnny was pleased with this new music, he made sure to listen very carefully, he might want to play Scott Joplin a lot in the future. Newton and Stephanie exchanged somewhat worried looks with each other.

Newton walked over to one of the crates to unpack a few of his belongings for tonight. Under his bed clothes, he noticed a small package, wrapped in the kraft paper they often used at NOVA when drafting ideas or formulas. He turned it around to pull the tape off, there was writing scrawled across it. 'Mayhaps this will be bringing you use in Montana?'

He opened it up and immediately a pile of papers fell to the floor. They were articles from Playboy on dating women. Newton groaned and crumpled them up as he picked each one off the floor.

"The nerve of that man!" Thankfully, he was alone. Inside the rest of the package was an extra circuit board - 'In the case of the robot malfunctioning' was written on a tag hanging from it. Ben still didn't understand the idea that he was no longer a machine, but a living being. He had to admit, it was a nice idea just in case. The last item in the package was the portable chess set that he and Ben used every day during breakfast and lunch (and sometimes dinner…). Ben was a strange man to everyone at work, but Newton always did enjoy spending time with him when working on the S.A.I.N.T. project and hoped to keep in touch about Johnny Five.

It had been a long day, but it was still too early to go to bed. Stephanie had refused to play chess. A waste of time, she called it.

"There are so many other things you can be doing in this world. Is that all you and Ben ever did with your precious free time? Stay cooped up inside with that thing? No, thanks."

Johnny Five, on the other hand, had never heard of the many moves that Newton taught him and used them to the best of his advantages, he let Newton win a handful of the games. He didn't want him to lose his love or joy about the game. He enjoyed playing the game either way.

After many games, Stephanie was done making her room comfortable for the night. This included lots of animals hanging about her bed and all of the kittens mewing from their box and the end of her bed.

She still had to take Beasley out for his last walk of the night.

"Okay, you two, enough sitting around, let's go out and enjoy the nighttime air!"

So they all went out on their little walk. They walked up to the beginning of the road where all of the many trees surrounded the property. It was dark, but Johnny's flashlight helped illuminate the area quite nicely. There, on one of the trees, Stephanie spotted something. She ran over to see what the tree read. Her heart lit up upon reading the engraving.

_**| May 17, 1986 |**_

_**| Stephanie + Newton |**_

"Who's responsible for this?" she called out to both of them.

Newton and Johnny simply looked over at each other smugly. She then went over and kissed Johnny lightly on the cheek.

"You, my friend, are amazing." she said to him.

She then walked over to Newton and stood next to him.

"You know, I was worried about you earlier. I wasn't sure you'd be able to handle this change. I thought…. well, I thought, that maybe you were chickening out on this whole idea and regretted your decision." she seemed softer here, with the light reflecting off the tree.

"I wouldn't dream of changing my mind." he said to her as they watched Johnny examine a dandelion on the ground. She smiled at him and walked back over to Johnny.

"Remember that question you asked me earlier? If we were a family?"

He nodded his head and his eyes looked sadly to the left as he lowered his brows.

"I should have said 'yes'. Because a family is not those that you are tethered to by blood or obligation. A family is made of loved ones that stick together no matter how they came to be, even if it's just two people and a bozo like you." She said this with a huge smile and a poke at his shoulder.

"I have another question, Stephanie…." he looked slightly worried as he said this.

"Yeah?"

"Is Kroger part of Newton's family?"

He pulled out the piece of paper from between the fencepost and showed it to Stephanie. It was hard to read, but she'd recognize that 'Kroger' logo anywhere. It was just a faded old piece of a newspaper ad. She turned it around and read out loud 'Family Comes First'.

"Well, you know, Johnny, good ol' Unlce Kroger here has the right idea."

* * *

_The End_


End file.
